Browse: Home / Annual Kids Count Factbook on child poverty, in 19 tweets

Annual Kids Count Factbook on child poverty, in 19 tweets

By on April 11, 2017

The annual Kids Count Factbook on child well-being in Rhode Island, now in its 23rd year, is a local rite of spring – but it’s nothing like the first tulips or tufted titmouse. Instead it’s an annual reminder of just how segregated – economically and otherwise – the Ocean State is.

The massive 194-page report takes socioeconomic indicators – such as median family income, housing costs, and education – and contrasts the “four core cities” – Providence, Pawtucket, Central Falls, and Woonsocket, where poverty is most concentrated in Rhode Island, and compares it to the rest of the state.

This year, I tweeted the reports’ highlights – or lowlights, as it were.

Probably the biggest news in the report was that the number of kids in Rhode Island dropped by almost 10 percent from 2000 to 2010.

All but three municipalities lost kids during that decade.

The most important information in this report is the number of children living in poverty, and as far as I’m concerned that’s the most important social crisis Rhode Island needs to address.

While these numbers are terrible, they don’t imply society is crumbling. In fact, quite the opposite. Believe it or not, we’re actually moving in the right direction. In 2015, 21.5 percent of kids were living in poverty – a 4.6% improvement, or some 4,000 fewer impoverished children.

And this wasn’t the only good news in this year’s Factbook. More kids have health insurance since 2009, too. Rhode Island is up to 96.6 percent of kids insured, 15th highest average in the nation.

The most jarring comparison to me is always just how much more income there is in the suburbs than in the cities.

To give you some idea of just how giant this discrepancy is:

Other huge differences from the suburbs to the cities are in education and marital status.

The education discrepancy is enormous.

There are seven towns in Rhode Island where, as of 2010, you could count all the black kids on two hands: Block Island, Jamestown, Hopkinton, Exeter, Little Compton, Scituate, and Charlestown. A total of 19 towns had fewer than 50 black children and 26 towns had fewer than 100.

That’s a lot of lily whiteness in rural Rhode Island. Jamestown in particular.

Almost a third of the homeless children in Rhode Island come from just four cities.

Despite the massive income, education, marital and racial discrepancies, it really doesn’t cost all that much more to rent a 2 bedroom apartment in the richest suburbs than it does in the poorest cities.

Affordable housing aside, many agree the best way to address the wide socioeconomic discrepancies between urban and suburban Rhode Island is by making public education an enforceable right in the state Constitution.

VN:R_U [1.9.20_1166]
Rating: 0.0/10 (0 votes cast)

Posted in , , , , , , , , | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a response

Bob Plain is the editor/publisher of Rhode Island's Future. Previously, he's worked as a reporter for several different news organizations both in Rhode Island and across the country.

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.